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Looking scared, but still beautiful in a billowy white satin $1,200 wedding gown (a gift of M-G-M), Cinemactress Elizabeth Taylor became the bride of Conrad Nicholson Hilton Jr., 23, son of the hotelman. A crowd of 600 people jammed the candlelit Beverly Hills Church of the Good Shepherd; 2,500 more lined the streets outside. The young folks (the bride had just recovered from a cold in her chest) left for a four-part honeymoon: a night in Santa Monica; a week in Carmel, Calif.; a week in Manhattan; three months in Europe.
In Bad Homburg, Germany, Tennis Star Gertrude ("Gorgeous Gussie") Moran teamed up with U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy, soundly beat (6-3, 6-3) Lady Elisabeth Macready, wife of the British economic adviser, and Lawrence Phillips, a McCloy associate. Pressed by reporters, Gussie later summed up the current state of her romantic life: "I am not engaged. At least, I don't think so."
Bandleader Xavier Cugat, 50, called in the press in Boston, announced that he would marry his band's songstress, Abbe Lane, 18, if he ever gets a divorce from his second wife. Then he turned to his fiancee and said gently: "Go down to your mother and take a nap before the show. Rest."
Named by veteran Movie Director Clarence (Intruder in the Dust) Brown, after 35 years in the movie business, as the five greatest lovers in screen history: John Barrymore, Charles Boyer, Clark Gable, John Gilbert, Rudolph Valetino.
The Laurels
Crowned, in Bangkok: Boston-born King Phumiphon, who had just returned from his honeymoon. The music-loving king (he sold five songs to a Broadway musical show now in rehearsal) lifted a nine-tiered crown onto his head as army & navy guns fired 101 salutes and the temple bells of every monastery in his kingdom rang seven times. He thus became Rama IX, King of Siam.
Awarded an around-the-world flight by the One World Award Committee, Inc., in Manhattan: Roger Nash Baldwin, former director, now chairman, of the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, "in recognition of ... 30 years of outstanding work . . . and for his contribution to the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
Presented in Manhattan to Bernard Baruch, 79, who has worn a hearing-aid for almost a decade: the 1950 Hearing Advancement Award of the Hearing Foundation, a promotional organization.
Honored by the Barter Theater of Abingdon, Va.: Actress Shirley Booth, for her playing of a slattern in Broadway's Come Back, Little Sheba. The award: "one Virginia ham and a platter to eat it off of," and an acre of Virginia land.
Signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to play opposite Fred Astaire in a forthcoming movie called Royal Wedding: Actress Sarah Churchill, 35, daughter of Winston Churchill.